Just So You Know, I Still Hate You A Lot
by Alory Shannon
Summary: A few months after Akatsuki is defeated, Sasuke is captured by Cloud-nin and thrown into prison…and who happens to be in the next cell over comes as a pretty big surprise. Set post-series, slightly AU now thanks to recent chapters. NOT YAOI.
1. 1: Commencement & Context

_A/N: This fic is NOT yaoi. It will NEVER be yaoi, no matter how much you might beg. So do us both a favour and don't bother with the begging. If you want yaoi, go elsewhere._

* * *

It's the thunderous, tooth-rattling _clang_ of a huge, heavy metal door falling into place that rouses him from the state of near-unconsciousness he's been in for the past few hours, that disjointed feeling of knowing that _something_ is going on, yet failing to grasp reality firmly enough to truly be considered awake. As gears turn and shift and the chained clatter of locks snapping closed and bolts slamming home assault his ears, he finally manages to slit open one dark eye, then the other, though the dull grey stone that meets his gaze offers precious little information as to his current situation.

The floor whirls and his vision blurs as he's suddenly forced into motion again, and he's gradually becoming more aware of his surroundings. It's cold, very cold, each step a jolt of unpleasant iciness against the soft, savagely torn bottoms of his feet, though they're too benumbed by the cold for him to feel any real pain. There's pressure on his shoulders and each of his arms--from the guards who are half-marching half-dragging him down a twisting maze of corridors--and he's already given up trying to remember the path they're taking even if it would be simplicity itself to remember if he could activate his Sharingan, which he can't. His head is heavy, impossible to hold up, his vision refuses to stop swimming out of focus, his whole body feels empty, weak, only the barest thready traces of chakra lingering within.

"_You may have tried, but you did not kill my little brother, so I will spare your life… But do not be fooled; this is hardly a mercy."_

Sasuke knows his ears are just playing tricks on him, that he must be delirious, because he can hear the Raikage's voice echoing through the hallways along with the tramp of his captors' thick boots, the stumbling slap of his own bare feet struggling to stay beneath him and to bear his weight, the rough hiss of his pantslegs dragging against the floor and the skin being scraped from his knees and shins and the tops of his feet when his legs give out and he tries to stop to rally his strength only to have the guards continue to pull him along between them regardless.

Closing his eyes again, he focuses on his own breathing, steadying himself, shutting out everything but that simple, balanced rhythm of _inhale hold exhale pause, inhale hold exhale pause,_ clearing his mind of the fog that pain and delirium had rolled over it…and then almost wanting it back as the bright flood of memories washes over him.

Konoha has been destroyed--Sasuke knows this, remembers it clearly, he'd seen what Pein had done, he'd been the one to set what little was left of it or had been rebuilt on fire, he'd watched it burn--though he is sure its people are already working to rebuild it again, because as long as any of them are left alive, the Will of Fire still lives on. Breaking the jar only frees what's trapped inside to fly away and grow stronger.

But Naruto is dead. Madara is dead as well, and so are most of the other members of Akatsuki. Sasuke would have been one of them if not for Sakura, and even though it's been more than half a year now, he's still not sure whether or not he's grateful that she found him in time, that she'd been willing to sacrifice part of her life energy to bring him back from the brink of death even knowing full well that he'd brought it all on himself and that he was why her home was burning and her friends were dying and her whole life was going up in smoke all around her. _I can't lose you, too,_ had been the words he'd only half-heard through the roaring of flames and the pounding of blood in his ears and the rattle of his own ragged breathing,_ and if this is the only way I ever bring you back, so be it._

Sakura is still in Konoha, and she is one of the reasons Sasuke is certain it is being rebuilt. But even if it is, he's more than certain that he could never return there, not even for her. The look in her eyes when she'd found him lying mortally wounded beside what was left of Naruto's body, that look still haunts him, because even though she didn't say a word, he could read a hundred questions there on her face and even if the questions weren't hers, even if they were solely his own creations and she'd never even thought them, they lingered around her, clouding her out of his already dimming sight. And they weren't questions he could live with. He couldn't stand seeing _are_ _you finally satisfied?_ and _how can this be what you wanted?_ and _was your revenge really worth losing this--losing __**him?**_ ghosting over her face and peeking out of her eyes and slipping themselves into everything she wasn't saying each time he looked her way. He'd already spent most of his life living for the past, and now he was finally ready to be rid of it, to let it go…and that meant letting it all go, even the few good things that still remained. At the time he hadn't known where he'd go _(where is your future? what will you do now?)_; all he'd known was that he had to.

Until today, he still hadn't known where he was going.

That uncertainty is gone now. Now, he's heading for one of the who knows how many cells in this poorly-lit meat freezer of a prison, set in the mountains in the farthest northern reaches of the Land of Lighting. He hadn't meant to wander into _Kaminari no Kuni_, but as he hadn't had any particular destination in mind, he hadn't taken any particular care in choosing his path, or in covering his tracks; the border patrol had captured him just two days after he'd crossed into their territory.

He'd been sloppy, or maybe he'd actually wanted to be captured, wanted someone to punish him for what he'd done to the only people left alive who'd really cared about him, wanted somewhere to focus his anger and resentment other than on himself.

Whatever the reason, it has landed him here, the northernmost wastelands of Lightning Country, his clothes taken and traded for a flimsy cotton prison uniform, his chakra neatly sealed by the cuffs clamped around both wrists and ankles, his body battered and bruised and his head still ringing from being repeatedly clocked with the prison warden's tonfa for his refusal to answer any and all questions. Sasuke doesn't even know the name of the facility, but it's obvious to him that this is where people go when the Raikage wants them to be forgotten.

He's thrown into one of the countless cells, the door shut and locked without so much as a parting jab from the guards, and he takes in his new residence as he wearily picks himself up off the floor. The cell is only slightly more complicated than a metal cube: there is a single door with a flap in it for meals to be shoved through, and there are no outside windows (actually something of a mercy, since he would doubtless freeze otherwise, not that he won't anyway thanks to the threadbare pajama-suit they're calling a prison uniform and the apparent lack of heat ducts). About half of all three inner walls are bars instead of solid sheet metal--the cells are doubtless harder to keep heated that way, and privacy is next to impossible, adding just that more cozy comfort to the prisoners' lives, though to be honest, Sasuke is slightly surprised that he hasn't been placed in solitary confinement, locked away from the rest of the world entirely. A metal bench with a tangle of dirty blankets atop it and a primitive toilet system are the cell's only fittings; the only lighting comes from the flickering fluorescent panels set in the ceiling of the corridor outside.

Years of shinobi training take over then, and his feet become his first priority. They're so numb now he can't stand, so he crawls to the bed and sets to work tearing the smallest of the blankets into long strips, wrapping himself in the remaining scraps of blanket and tucking his feet beneath himself in an effort to warm them in the meantime. Once he's finished preparing the strips, he begins to chafe his feet, working feverishly to rub the feeling back into them, ignoring the sting of the cuts and abrasions on the tender soles; he's eventually rewarded with the tingling prickle of revived circulation, at which point he proceeds to wrap his feet in the strips of cloth, fashioning makeshift shoes of a sort. While far from warm, they should contain his body heat well enough to prevent him from losing any toes to frostbite.

That done, he huddles against one of the inner walls, knowing that he should get up and move around a bit to warm himself, but far too exhausted to do so, and unwilling to leave even the negligible warmth he's generated beneath his blankets.

It's a tribute to just how well the Kumo-nin have worked him over that Sasuke doesn't sense the presence in the next cell over until just that moment. The sudden telltale crawl of the skin on the back of his neck warns him that he's being watched, and with obvious reluctance, the last Uchiha shifts about, turning to look through the bars at who he now perceives is the only other person in this cellblock.

The other prisoner's build and the faint trace of chakra lingering about him tell Sasuke that he's a shinobi too, slight and blonde and probably not much taller than Sasuke himself, and though he's wrapped himself in his bedding as well, he doesn't really seem all that bothered by the cold, as if he's used to it. There's something troublingly familiar about him--the tilt of his eyes, the bright gold of his hair, his high cheekbones, the smugly superior expression his features are set in; but when Sasuke makes eye contact, that condescending, self-important smirk freezes, almost instantly overshadowed by a flicker of shock, surprise…and recognition.

"_You."_

As the flash of recognition fades, the blonde's face twists into something ugly, full of rage and hatred; then abruptly, those emotions shift to curiosity and grudging admiration, though there's still more than a little anger and annoyance edging them.

"You're supposed to be dead, _yeah."_

It takes Sasuke few seconds to place the other man; the (rather irritating) verbal tic is what jogs his memory, otherwise he might not have made the connection at all. The blonde looks so different without his hitai-ate or Akatsuki cloak and with his hair cut short, shaggy and messy and still in his eyes but not even falling to his shoulders. It makes him look a hell of a lot more masculine, and decidedly younger as well, much closer to Sasuke's age, which in all actuality he might very well be.

But those dark-fringed, sharply blue eyes are unmistakably the same, as is the expression of loathing smouldering in them.

…What had Madara called him again…?

"So are you," Sasuke rasps back, his voice rough and hoarse from disuse and most likely the beginnings of illness. He can't help studying the other shinobi, both to determine his condition and convince himself that he's made a positive identification. Patches of what little he can see of the blonde's skin are shiny and raw, as if he's still healing from some serious burns, and he looks pale and gaunt as only a long-held prisoner can, but it's definitely the same guy, the one who tried to blow them both up at the end of their fight.

The blonde _(Deidara,_ Sasuke suddenly remembers, his name is Deidara) tries to smirk at him but it comes out looking a lot more like a sneer, and an uneasy one at that. "That final jutsu of mine didn't work quite the way I thought it would, yeah." His tone is light and airy, as if having to admit to a mistake of this magnitude isn't a knife twist between the ribs of his ego. "It's not like I could _test_ it, after all. How was I supposed to know that it wouldn't kill me like it was supposed to, that I'd only end up _nearly_ dead, drained of chakra, and covered in burns hundreds of miles away from where I'd been?" He almost sounds bitter, though whether it's over the fact that he didn't die with his masterpiece after all or something else, something he's not saying about all this, Sasuke doesn't know and honestly doesn't really care. Nonetheless he automatically files away the basic details of Deidara's story:

He'd been found not too far from Kumogakure, ironically enough. The Kumo-nin had healed him, treating his burns so well that hardly a scar remained, then imprisoned him once he'd healed enough for them to fit his face with the one in his profile in the bingo book. After two attempted (and nearly successful, according to the former Iwa-nin) escapes from the prison in Kumogakure, they'd sent him here…

Deidara is still talking about _something,_ and Sasuke tries to keep processing it, tries to force himself to comprehend what's being said to him, but he feels more and more like he's trying to listen while trapped under water, drifting farther and farther from consciousness and reality, slowly sinking until the light fades away entirely and the darkness rises from the deep to swallow him up.


	2. 2: Unbalanced Equations

Deidara has been tapping away at the metal wall of his cell for well over three hours now. Sasuke had succeeded in ignoring him at first, but every now and then the supposedly random tapping would slip into Morse code, and Sasuke hadn't been able to keep himself from automatically translating the messages. He'd taken the taunts about Konoha and his own person with stoic impassivity, and though it had been more difficult, he hadn't responded to the slights concerning the Uchiha clan as a whole and Itachi in particular either; but when the blonde artist dares to insult his _mother,_ a line has been crossed, and Sasuke finally snaps.

"_**SHUT UP."**_ The snarl hurts as it tears its way up his raw, swollen throat, and it is only through sheer effort of will that he doesn't dissolve into a coughing fit afterwards. He wants to add some sort of threat, but the knowledge that his voice will be ragged and gravelly and _hardly_ intimidating since it will most likely crack prevents him from doing so; he's forced to settle for simply glaring at the other shinobi.

Deidara meets his gaze straight on, giving him an insufferably droll grin and finishing the word he's tapping out before lurching upright on his bunk. "Fine." His voice is light and clear (despite the fact that he spends most of his time largely exposed to the frigid air with only his prison uniform to ward off the chill rather than wrapped in his blankets, the blonde doesn't even have the traces of a cold, and Sasuke loathes him for it), and he leans his back against the wall coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll stop…" His inflection adds a conditional element to those words, leaving it a dangling, pointed _if._

But if he expects Sasuke to press him for those conditions, he's going to be disappointed; the Uchiha simply continues to give him the same flat glare, one that promises that, should he ever get the chance, revenge will be swift and merciless.

"…I'll stop if you'll actually _say_ something every now and then, yeah," Deidara finally continues. "I don't know how you can stand being so _boring, _but it's annoying to talk to someone without getting any sort of response." The blonde gives him what is probably intended to be a winning smile, though there's far too much smirk and latent hostility in it for him to quite pull it off. "Do we have a deal, hmm?"

Sasuke's scowl doesn't lighten, but he doesn't say no or look away, which Deidara (correctly) takes as grudging nonverbal agreement. But that's not good enough for him at the moment—he wants it in words, wants to hear Sasuke give in, because as always even this is about winning.

"I _said,_ do we have a deal, hmm?" Lazily he raises a hand to begin tapping again, but before his knuckles can make contact with the metal, Sasuke speaks.

"Yes, we have a deal."

His voice is low and quiet, slightly rough with sickness, and, despite the fact that he is giving in, that this can only be seen as submitting, there are still shreds of pride in the way he's closed his eyes to the blonde's smirk, the way he's so calmly refused to let this mean anything him.

And Deidara's smirk turns to a snarl as he realises that once again, he hasn't really won at all.

* * *

Sasuke does keep up his end of the bargain, though for the most part Deidara seems glad enough just to hear the sound of his own voice and know someone's listening. Considering the fact that his "art" is all he ever really wants to talk about, Sasuke is content to let him carry the conversations, only giving a response when the blonde's expression makes it clear that he expects one. Regardless of that, they've still managed to get into more than a few arguments, the entirety of which have ended with Deidara fuming and sulking and Sasuke realising all-new levels of apathy.

Their current conversation is warming up to yet another fight (it had started with "You know, you really should have died when we fought before, yeah, and I'll tell you why" and things hadn't really had anywhere to go _except_ downhill from there), and really Deidara should know better than to bring up this particular topic (some genius, but then again intelligence and common sense often did tend to be mutually exclusive, oddly enough), but Sasuke has more than vague suspicions that the blonde chooses touchy subjects on occasion just to get a rise out of him.

But two can play at that game; so this time, Sasuke gives his opinion without waiting for it to be asked for:

"Nothing you've said changes the fact that killing yourself to kill _me_ was stupid and meaningless."

"Wrong," the blonde says, a feral grin snapping into place to cover his flash of irritation at being interrupted, though it's just a second too slow. "The sight of _fear_ shining in _THOSE EYES_, even just for an instant, for that flickering fraction of a second, was well worth the price I paid. Because it _made_ you look, made you pay attention, made you _notice_ and appreciate my art in all its glorious, deadly power. Because it made you _feel._ Because for once in your dull, boring, screwed-up life, that implacable too-pretty porcelain poker face of yours _cracked_, and something _real_ and _honest_ and _worthwhile_ shone through, yeah."

Sasuke gives a low snort, unmoved by either the tirade or the passion with which it's delivered. "Is that really the case? Or do you simply like the idea of seeing fear on my face because you'll never see it on Itachi's, and I was close as you could get?"

When that earns him an aggravated look from the blonde, Sasuke knows that he's hit the nail on the head, despite Deidara's immediate claims to the contrary. "Of _course _it's really the case, yeah! What could be more perfect, what could be a better, more fitting end to an artist's life than becoming one with their work, and making someone who's never _really_ given a damn about anyone but themselves actually _CARE_ about something that's important to someone else for once? Even if it's for the wrong reasons, it's still _something,_ yeah."

"But you didn't die."

There's something strangely powerful about those four little words. Deidara gives an odd backwards jerk, a haunted look flitting over his face, settling in his eyes, his overconfident grin vanishing in an instant. He curls inward just slightly, defensively, and glowers with an entirely new sort of anger at the Uchiha, fresh rage over a still-tender wound rather than smouldering hatred over wrongs long past.

_There's no way he could know,_ the blonde tells himself and huddles in a little more, grasps his own arms a little tighter. _There's no way there's now way there's no way I haven't told him haven't said a word he couldn't know there's no way._ But there _is_ a way, he knows this, and it sets his teeth on edge to even consider it but after all he's been through, he'd be a fool not to admit (just to himself) that _those eyes_ could have seen something, could have seen _through_ him, could have picked up on the true aftereffects of what he'd thought would be his final jutsu, his masterpiece, his _magnum opus_.

He thinks of asking, of having it confirmed, but the fading scars on his arms and the rapid growth of his hair and the fact that he's grown two inches in the past few months and the way that he _know_s that it's cold and he can feel the chill in the stone and the metal and the air surrounding him and yet it doesn't touch him the same way it used to are more than convincing enough to be a confirmation and, what's more, in his mind, a condemnation. Still he considers asking, just as he has fleetingly hundreds of times already, but his tongue feels as heavy and immovable in his mouth as the mountains he grew up in, and the capacity for verbal communication has utterly deserted him.

_But you didn't die._

Ironic how five simple syllables could scatter all his innumerable ones like so much chaff.

And while he's grasping about in a vain attempt to get them back, trying to shut out his own self-doubt, his own self-loathing, Sasuke pins him with a red-eyed stare (the first time he's used his Sharingan since he's been imprisoned here, and he's surprised he can manage it while wearing those cuffs) and deals the finishing blow:

"In any case…_these_ eyes have never looked at you with fear."

It's a curious intonation, a strangely-placed but nonetheless unshakably firm emphasis on that fourth word, and it leaves Deidara curious, confused, and gaping. Sasuke almost thinks there's something familiar about his expression, as if he's seen it before; he can't know it, but the blonde artist is looking at him now the same way he'd once looked at Itachi, something like surprise and dawning comprehension and awe rendering him unable to think, to speak, to move, only able to look on and wonder and envy and almost, almost admire.

Sasuke doesn't expect him to understand those words--in fact, he rather hopes he doesn't: it might earn him some peace and quiet if his fellow prisoner has a riddle to beat his head against. Closing his eyes, he lets the Sharingan fade away, bowing his head slightly, and though it has been a long time since he's considered himself worthy of praying for anyone, Sasuke has no such reservations about indulging in a moment of gentle remembrance and remorse-filled gratitude towards the person who'd truly given up everything to protect him...and who watched over him still, had opened his eyes to the world once more in more ways than one. For Sakura had done him one last favour before he'd left her behind…

It's the laughter that breaks his train of thought. He's well used to being yelled at and having Deidara give him the cold shoulder, but this laughter, far more chilling than the frigid stone or the frosty air, is something entirely new. Wary of this, he slowly opens his eyes, not certain of what he'll find himself looking at, not certain he even wants to know.

It's _that_ grin again, the one that's just a little too wide and toothy and that makes Deidara look more than a little unstable (which he is of course) and that makes Sasuke feel more than a little uneasy despite the promised safety of the bars separating them. Sasuke hates that grin even more than Deidara's smug little smirks, because this expression never fails to send a shiver down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. Sasuke is fully aware that after everything he's been through, he's probably every bit as crazy as the blonde artist, but he also knows full well that their respective mental instabilities are decidedly different—Deidara's makes him a great deal more unpredictable and therefore a great deal more dangerous, a fact his eyes alone make readily apparent; every time they catch at the Uchiha's (especially when he's wearing that unsettling grin), Sasuke can't help but stare back just long enough to clearly read _here there be monsters_ lurking in their depths.

Deidara is murmuring something now, legs drawn up to his chest, face buried in his knees, rocking back and forth a little. Muffled as it is, Sasuke can't quite make out what he's saying, which is irritating, but at the same time he can't help but be relieved that at least the laughter has stopped. The murmuring continues, steadily growing louder, and Sasuke manages to make out what sounds like, _"So blind, so, so blind"_ before the blonde suddenly goes completely still and silent.

He doesn't move until the guards come to take them to the showers, and even then he's silent, his face set and thoughtful.


	3. 3: The Plan & The Breakout, Part I

There's a definite shift in their conversations after that. They're less common for one thing, because Deidara often seems too preoccupied with thinking about something else to initiate things and of course Sasuke never starts them; and for another, while they sometimes still stray towards the old topics of art and their single confrontation and the Uchiha bloodline limit, more often they concern seemingly random things, and they're usually questions now rather than statements or lectures. How old he'd been when he graduated from the Academy. Where he'd been ranked in his class. What subject he'd been best at academically. The first time he'd killed someone, when where why how. If he'd ever stolen something. If he'd ever cheated on a test. How the rest of his class, the rest of his Village, had treated him. How he'd spent his free time. If he had any hobbies. What he'd do when (not if) they ever got out of here.

Sasuke wants to ignore the questions, but whenever he does that unbearable smirk comes back and the tapping starts, or Deidara stares at him with unnerving intensity, or the question is simply repeated until he answers. Even if he thought it remotely possible that Deidara had been planted there by his captors to befriend him and then spy on him, they aren't the kind of questions the Kumo-nin would care about anyway (aren't the kind of things _anyone _would care about really), so more often than not he grudgingly gives up the trivial bits of information. After all, the blonde is hardly subtle enough to be a spy, but then again, he's surprised Sasuke more than once, so perhaps the idea isn't really that ridiculous.

He does get the feeling that Deidara is putting together a puzzle of some sort, but the questions are never very personal (nothing about his friends, his family, his feelings, his reasoning behind certain actions, never anything like that, always just small, inconsequential facts), so he doesn't really mind. Most of the time Deidara answers the questions too, though Sasuke only listens because it's easy to pretend that he isn't, and also because there's nothing else to do other than shiver and wait for mealtime or the showers and do whatever exercises he can in the confined space to keep himself fit.

It's been pushups today, and he's done so many he's lost count and is currently content to sprawl prostrate on the ground, muscles burning, sweat freezing on his skin, pretending not to listen to Deidara going on about some exercise they'd had to do back at the Academy in Iwagakure.

There are certain parallels between them, the Uchiha thinks as he pushes himself up to lean back against one of the cold cell walls, though he's loathe to admit it; he's certain the blonde sees them too and is equally reluctant to acknowledge it. High expectations, popularity, an inner drive to find a way to make themselves the strongest no matter the cost. And selfishness, Sasuke has realised, a great deal of selfishness, though he doubts Deidara can see that even now; but then, that's one of the many differences that lie between them as well. _Even_ _now, you can't accept the possibility that you might have ever been in the wrong…_

"—You know, there's a trick to these cuffs, yeah."

Those words _do_ catch Sasuke's attention, snapping him out of his private thoughts and back to the present, though he tries to make his interest appear only casual; the fact that he's obvious about having any at all is more than enough to give his true feelings away to the sharp-eyed blonde. Deidara grins on having succeeded in arousing some curiosity from his fellow prisoner, his expression making it clear that he intends to savour this, to drag it out as long as possible. Sasuke just gives him a flat stare that is rife with annoyance, but he'll put up with whatever frills and airs the other shinobi decides to put on. It isn't like he has much choice, or anything better to do with his time.

"I bet you think they're chakra-inhibiting cuffs, don't you?" the blonde artist drawls. "The kind that clamp nice and tight around your wrists and ankles and disrupt the chakra flow through your _keirakukei,_ allowing just enough chakra to circulate to keep you from dying, but making it impossible for you to really control it or do anything with it. Pretty standard issue gear for any Hidden Village prison." Sasuke wonders idly just how Deidara knows that, not that he really cares or would ever bother asking, but then that rakehell grin flashes into place again, and just because they've had a few semi-civil conversations doesn't mean that Sasuke hates that smirk any less, and for the moment that hate occludes everything else. "Or they _would_ be, if that's what they were, yeah."

Sasuke stares at Deidara blankly, but the other shinobi seems determined to make him ask this time, or at least indicate that this is indeed news to him, that he doesn't know something that the former Iwa nin clearly does. Sasuke knows full well just how irrationally stubborn the blonde artist can be, so after several long moments of expectant silence from both sides, he gives in and raises an eyebrow a fraction, earning himself yet another frustrating look at that toothy smirk.

"These," Deidara says with a flourish, "are more like chakra-_repression_ cuffs. They don't keep your chakra from circulating, they just keep your chakra level from increasing--so whatever you had in your system when they put them on you is what you've got now."

Sasuke blinks, his face set in a faint but clear _that's stupid, why the hell would they want to do that?_ expression, at which Deidara gives a gleeful chortle.

"Not very creative when it comes to this type of thing, are you, hmm? So I'll save you the brain strain and just tell you. These cuffs are used when they _want_ you to be able to put up a bit of a fight. It's pretty sadistic, really, since you still don't have enough leeway to take a good shot at them. They're mostly just an excuse to kick the shit out of you every so often--easiest thing in the world for a guard to claim that a prisoner wearing this type of cuffs tried to turn on him. Probably isn't even any paperwork to fill out, yeah."

"How do you know all this?" Sasuke asks, the question just short of a demand for the information.

Deidara grins at him, though it's more like a barring of teeth, all sinister self-satisfaction and glinting white malevolence. "You learn things, being a missing nin. At least _I_ did." Sasuke doesn't respond to that jab, not that the blonde had expected him to, so he goes on. "Got some of it out of a guard in Kumogakure's main penitentiary, yeah. He had a big mouth, no common sense, and even less respect for my art than you."

Sasuke can't help but notice how smug Deidara sounds, or how he's speaking of the guard in the past tense, and while he might keep it from his expression, he can't keep the disgust, and moreover the plain dislike, out of his eyes.

Deidara just smiles in reply, cold, cruel, and utterly unrepentant. "Don't worry, he didn't scream for very long--I'd guess it would be pretty hard to do that with your throat torn out, yeah--but apparently it was still bad for the guards' morale." He chuckles again, closing his eyes and stretching out on his back on the frigid stone floor, his tone thoroughly amused. "Don't look so surprised. Why did you think I _really_ got transferred up here to the middle of nowhere, hmm?"

* * *

Nearly a whole day has passed without Sasuke hearing a word from his fellow prisoner. He's glad for the respite, especially after how unpleasant their last exchange had been, but instead of simply being a relief, the silence feels thick and uneasy, like the air before a storm or the atmosphere in a briefing room before a particularly difficult mission. Sasuke catches himself casting half-apprehensive glances Deidara's way far too often, no less than a few times each hour, but either the blonde hasn't noticed or is choosing to ignore it; his eyes are distant, an intense frown etching twin lines between his eyes and on either side of the bridge of his nose as he considers something. The Uchiha gets the distinct feeling that the blonde artist is having some sort of internal conflict, but while he has little else to focus on and curiosity certainly is a bitch, he still doesn't care enough to break the blessed silence with any sort of inquiry.

Sleep, he decides, is the best way to stop himself from going crazy by watching Deidara go crazy.

But even weeks of imprisonment can't dull his firmly-ingrained shinobi instincts enough to change him from a light sleeper to a heavy sleeper; the low, grim chuckle from the next cell over is more than enough to snap him back to almost full awareness, and he's more than awake enough to catch Deidara's quiet murmur:

"…I have a plan…"

* * *

Sasuke still isn't really convinced that this mysterious plan has a fraction of a shadow of a chance of working, but now that Deidara has gotten the idea in his head, he's already running with it, his mouth going a mile a minute and still not even half managing to keep up with how fast his brain is working:

"No no, this could definitely work. After all, _I'm_ a genius, and you're _clearly_ the luckiest bastard to ever walk this earth, so together—"

"Not. Interested." Sasuke's words are clipped and final-sounding, but they're also a lie, one that his steady, continued gaze gives away, and Deidara calls him on it.

"But you're interested in hearing it, at least, hmm?"

Sasuke's eyes narrow marginally, but he doesn't look away, which is as much of an admission as Deidara is going to get, and yet the blonde couldn't have looked more smug if he'd tried.

"It's pretty simple, really, but that's the beauty of it. All you need to do is use that lightning jutsu you like so much on one of my wrist cuffs, and I'll take care of the rest, yeah."

The Uchiha gives a low snort--was this _really_ what Deidara had been thinking about this whole time?--and does nothing to hide his scorn as he says, "You think I haven't tried that already? Whatever kind of cuffs they are, they still inhibit my chakra too much for my Chidori to have any effect on them."

The artist's expression darkens at the overt contempt in Sasuke's tone, but he forces a tight-lipped smile nonetheless, though the gleam in his eyes is far from friendly. "That won't be a problem. I'll handle it, yeah." Somehow he makes it sound very much like a threat, the way that strained smile is edging towards out-and-out _vicious_ no doubt assisting in that; then without another word he curls up on his side, pointedly turning his back to Sasuke, and pretends to sleep.

He doesn't move until several hours later. The guards have long since made their nightly rounds when the blonde suddenly sits bolt upright, listens for a moment, then is at the bars between their cells in an instant. He beckons impatiently for Sasuke to move closer, which the younger man does only grudgingly, eyeing Deidara with an ill-concealed distrust that soon proves to be entirely justified.

"You're left-handed, yeah?" Before Sasuke can even answer the question, the blonde artist has reached through the bars separating them, grasping the Uchiha's wrist tightly (and with surprising strength, though he _is_ a sculptor, and a shinobi besides, so perhaps not quite so surprising after all), pulling his arm through the bars.

And then, carelessly, casually, as if he's done it countless times before, he presses his thumbs down just so and calmly breaks two of the metacarpals in Sasuke's right hand.

Sasuke gives a pained hiss of surprise and tries to jerk his hand back; Deidara grimly holds on and breaks another bone, the one in his thumb, before allowing the Uchiha to pull away with a genuine snarl and some heartfelt swearing.

For once Deidara ignores the insults entirely, or perhaps not quite entirely since he answers with a matching level of heat: "Stop wasting time and get that cuff off, yeah, or do I have to do that for you, too?"

When Sasuke simply continues to glower at him and cradle his broken hand, the blonde huffs a sigh and explains, "If one of the cuffs malfunctions--_or_ is taken off--the rest take up the slack, but not quite as tightly as before, and while the control levels are fluctuating, you can—"

"So why didn't you just break your _own_ hand and escape by yourself months ago?"

"Because of the _mouths,_ genius," Deidara snaps, shoving his palms (which briefly gnash their teeth at the dark-haired shinobi) through the bars into Sasuke's face, his usual temper flaring slightly at Sasuke's scathing tone. "I could break every bone in my hand twice and slather the cuffs in spit; there's still no way they could ever fit through--and don't think I haven't tried it anyway."

"Why should I bother to follow this plan." The Uchiha's voice is tight with anger, eyes slitted to mere chips of jet; defensive as he's feeling at the moment, he doesn't dare waste any chakra on the Sharingan. "You're just going to leave me here and blast your own way out, so why should I waste my chakra on you?"

Deidara goes silent, jaw clenching visibly, lips pressing into a thin line, and Sasuke catches a final, fleeting glimpse of that puzzling internal conflict he'd noted earlier flickering across the older shinobi's face; then he's locked in his decision and looks away and answers the question, albeit grudgingly.

"…Heh, you're smarter than you look after all. Normally, I _would_ leave you behind without a second thought, yeah. But one against seventy, eighty or so well-armed jounin? Those are some pretty shitty odds for someone who's still halfway hampered by these handcuffs, completely unarmed, and who's been in prison for over a year, even if that someone is an S-class ninja genius." He gives Sasuke a cool sideways stare. "I might be crazy, but I'm not stupid, yeah, and I'm not proud enough to want to die over this." One corner of his mouth pulls upwards with a quirk of a smile. "Besides, it'll be a lot easier to kill you if you're out there and free like me instead of locked away and protected by this frozen shithole of a prison."

Sasuke meets that stare for a long moment, carefully noting the annoyance, the impatience, and most of all the hint of desperate sincerity in Deidara's face, his own expression unreadable; and just when Deidara is sure that he's not going to go for it, there's a low grunt of effort from the other side of the bars and quick blur of motion between them, then the brilliant chirping crackle of electricity and the raw smell of burning ozone and a dazzling, dancing flash of blue. Then there is only silence and what seems like a much deeper darkness than before following in the wake of that luminosity…and then the clatter of handcuffs—two of them—hitting the stone floor.

* * *

Sasuke watches as Deidara feverishly sets to work on the sculptures that will (hopefully) get them out of their cells. He'd wondered what base material Deidara would use to mold his creatures since he obviously wouldn't have access to any clay, and the stone floor is probably granite and is sanded smooth besides; still, he blinks in slight surprise as he watches Deidara dump a small pile of little white tablets--Sasuke recognises them as the antipsychotic he was given with each meal--out of a tear in the lining of his blanket. He feeds them into the mouths in his palms, his lip twisting a bit, likely at the bitter taste of the pills, but he resolutely chews them into a malleable paste, adding saliva and chakra, letting the cold air stiffen the mixture before setting to work molding it into the three separate figurines.

Sasuke sincerely hopes that Deidara plans on making these bombs subtle--he's seen what the blonde is capable of, and knows that he could if he wanted to--but if it's really been over a year since the other shinobi was imprisoned, the younger man doubts there's any chance of this breakout being anything less than loud and flashy enough to wake the entire garrison.

He's surprised how unsettling it is to watch the other man at work. It makes him a little giddy to be staring that eerie madness full in the face, mostly because he knows (whether he wants to admit it or not, and he doesn't) that he and the twisted creature in the cell beside him are really not all that different; and the simple horror and revulsion are so tightly intertwined with narrowly repressed rage at anything and everything and especially at that traitorous feeling of glee burning at the back of his mind, a dark sort of excitement, that deeply buried but undeniable part of him that enjoys the memories of hot, sticky blood on his hands and smoke in his eyes and the scent of fire and destruction and the feeling of total control and complete power.

Focused as he is, the blonde seems hyperaware of his surroundings at the moment, and he can't help but look up at Sasuke's protracted stare; he gives a faint, self-satisfied smirk at finding that he does indeed have an audience, though something he sees on the Uchiha's face makes his ever-moving hands pause just briefly. _I know,_ Deidara's expression tells him, and while he's still smiling that smug little smirk, there's no judgment in his eyes, no disgust, no hatred for once--just understanding, and more than a spark of that same uncanny glee. _I know that same terrible, beautiful joy, and I embraced it rather than let it break me._

Then that moment of discordant harmony passes as once again his eyes and his hands and his attention are dedicated solely to his creations, and Sasuke is left feeling off-balance and more haunted and tainted than ever.

Thankfully he doesn't have long to dwell on any of that (though it's only a small comfort, since he knows he'll have to deal with those thoughts and feelings sooner or later): Deidara has straightened and is quickly turning the three small figures he's made over in his hands.

All three are vaguely avian in form, though the shape of one's wings make it look more like a bat, and none display any hint of the pseudo-life that Sasuke had previously associated with all of Deidara's works. The pills must have been an even more difficult substance to work with than he'd thought, he muses inwardly as he watches the other man place the miniature sculptures, fastening them to certain weak points in the stone or iron that he must've picked out days, weeks, months earlier, each tiny figure stuck firmly in place with a mixture of pill powder and saliva.

A short, more than slightly mad laugh is Sasuke's only warning to get down before Deidara skips backwards away from the bars, hands already forming the necessary seal, a grin that shows more of his teeth than should really be possible plastered across his face in the instant before he utters that single, simple word that sets everything into motion and makes art of the mundane:

"_**KATSU!"**_

Sasuke had ducked down at the rear of his cell, closing his eyes and turning his head away from the explosion, ignoring the grinding twinge of pain in his right hand as he clamped his hands over his ears; regardless of these precautions, the sudden radiant burst of light nearly blinds him, the shockwave throws him hard against the wall, and both leave him with spots dancing before his eyes, gasping as a wave of superheated air washes over him, a level of heat he'd never thought he'd feel again and that he welcomes even as it burns his throat and nostrils as he gulps it in. And then, before he can take a second breath, it's all over, and all he's breathing in is smoke and ash. He chokes halfway through, comes to his feet coughing into his sleeve and wiping at his eyes, moving towards the bars—or rather, the gaping hole where there had once been bars. The entire front end of their cells are gone, nothing left of the thick iron doors and steel bars but glowing, jagged-edged metal and more ash; the hole extends to the floor and ceiling, and Sasuke can see a large part of the cells directly above iand/i below theirs--but the hallway is practically untouched, both ways devoid of rubble. He turns a look towards his former fellow prisoner and temporary new partner, his closed expression not betraying a hint of the almost-approval he feels towards the blonde artist for his obvious skill in the area of demolitions.

Deidara had faced the explosion full-on--the noticeably cinder-darkened front of his prison uniform and the black smudges and red patches on his face and arms testify to that--and his face is alight with passion, almost transfigured by the ardent emotion set on his face: a bone-shaking, blood-burning, chillingly all-encompassing _joy._ He pauses for a fraction of a moment in the jagged hole his sculptures tore in the rock and iron, spreading his arms, breathing in deeply, stretching as if from a long, tiring sleep.

Then he turns to Sasuke, flashes him a fiercely jubilant grin that is all teeth and eagerness with a hint of _I told you so_ and _come on, let's go_, nodding towards the hallway stretching out before them; and in that instant the Uchiha wonders what kind of monster he's let loose, and if his own freedom was worth what it might very well cost countless others someday.


	4. 4: The Plan & The Breakout, Part II

It was systematic, and yet somehow almost artistic in a mechanical, methodical sort of way, Deidara thought, how they moved through the hallways together, checking each door they came to, ignoring the pleas and insults and surprised exclamations of other prisoners, and especially--_especially_--how they worked together to take down the prison guards they ran into. He had never been one for working in groups, something his genin team and the unfortunate jounin leading them had learned that the hard way, and being partnered with Sasori and Tobi had been intriguing and irritating respectively, but this was different. This was someone he hated, someone whose methods he had no respect for, someone who had humiliated and looked down on him ever since they'd met; and yet now, watching him fight (and struggle) _without_ the use of his Sharingan, now Deidara was learning something new, seeing another side of the Uchiha brat, which wasn't something he bothered to do all that often. Once he'd made up his mind about someone, he tended to stick with that decision.

But watching Uchiha Sasuke now, there could be no doubt that there was more to him than just _those eyes._ He was hell on wheels, tearing through each wave of guards that came at them, every motion graceful and brutal as it flowed, smooth and effortless, into the next, and Deidara found it impossible not to watch him out of the corner of his eye, because _this_ was something kinetic, a series of brief but always purposeful, always precise movements; it would happen, an explosion of action, and then an instant later it would all be over, nothing left but ruined bodies and blood sprayed on the walls and leaking over the floor and splattered across the front of the Uchiha's prison uniform, marring that sickly-pale skin and almost dripping into those flat, bottomless-pit-black eyes, and it was _art._

Still, he doesn't like the sudden approval he feels towards the younger man--not one bit--and he can't resist sniping at him a little the first chance he gets:

"I thought you Leaf-nin didn't kill if you could help it," Deidara says with a smirk as they both pause briefly to catch their breath, backs pressed against the wall beside another of the winding, unpredictably twisting corridors favoured by the designer of that facility (if there even _was_ one). It's exhausting, fighting with so little chakra, and even though they're armed now, they're still pretty heavily outnumbered.

Sasuke gives him a long, steady look, then turns away, leaning out just slightly to scan the next hallway. "We can't take that sort of risk here," he says, his tone cool and matter-of-fact, then abruptly glances back, eyes hard, expression daring the former Iwa-nin to disagree. "And I'm not a Leaf-nin anymore."

There's something inexpressibly savage in his face--maybe it has to do with all the blood on it, or maybe it's the fact that he hasn't even attempted to wipe it away, the way he simply accepts it and leaves it there to dry, because he knows he's in his element--and for an instant, Deidara feels a flicker of uncertainty, of fear, and he's always hated whatever scared him, whatever he couldn't understand, and Sasuke is both.

Glowering, he pushes himself to his feet, and after glancing down the hallway for himself, practically hurls himself down it, taking point and forcing Sasuke to follow and play rearguard.

The blonde grins when he hears the clatter of approaching footsteps, and readies the katars he took from one of the guards; now it's his turn to show off a little.

* * *

Deidara, Sasuke has decided, is precisely the type of fighter that he has always disliked. The other shinobi is unpredictable, flinging himself through each movement with a half-wild enthusiasm and barely-there control, relying on instinct and reflex rather than precision or planning. Yet that isn't entirely true either--despite his seeming carelessness, the former Iwa-nin is always maneuvering his opponents into the positions he wants. He's alarmingly skillful at this, Sasuke knows that first-hand, and he can't help but wonder if perhaps the roughness and intentionally flashy moves are meant to make enemies underestimate him. Regardless of the impulsiveness and lack of polish, he's still chillingly effective: a worthy ally, at least as far as his capabilities are concerned.

Sasuke watches as Deidara finishes the last guard, noting that his smirk doesn't falter nor does he hesitate in the least even when the man begs for his life; Deidara toys with him, actually snickering as he watches the man choke on his own blood before finishing him off.

Absently rubbing a speckle of that blood from his cheek, the blonde flashes Sasuke a grin (which is of course not returned) before stepping over the still-twitching corpse and moving on down the hall.

Sasuke looks after him a moment before following, his expression closed and cold.

A worthy ally, at least as far as his capabilities are concerned.

* * *

The next area they enter happens to be the infirmary. It's deserted, all the staff either hiding elsewhere or regrouping in preparation for an attack, but there are still a lot of rooms, all of which needed to be checked: medic-nin were far too dangerous and versatile to allow the chance to sneak up behind you.

"I'll take the rooms on the right," Sasuke says, more an order than an offer. Deidara looks at him sharply, but the artist has already taken a step left and isn't about to change his mind due to anything Sasuke's said.

"Who died and made you boss of the world, hmm?" Deidara snorts, continuing on his way, blood-smeared katars held ready at his sides. Sasuke is glad for an excuse to part with the blonde, albeit only for a few moments, and decides to take a chance. He briefly allows his Sharingan to snap on, glancing at the rooms, searching for bright splashes of colour--the quickest way to find any remaining medic-nin, and if he finds one, he'll need all the time he can get.

He notices an odd flicker in the second to last room and approaches carefully, senses alert, an appropriated _wakizashi_ at the ready, every muscle tense as a coiled spring. But when he enters the room, he finds it empty, bed carefully made up, machinery standing neatly in the corner, a flimsy plywood cabinet at one end of the room, both doors closed.

The cabinet is the obvious hiding place, the only hiding place, so after scanning the room, he steps silently towards it, pausing with one hand on the knob, listening. Inside he hears muffled breathing and a frantically racing heart, either from fear or from excitement at a trap about to be sprung: a single opponent. Sasuke shifts his grip on the _wakizashi,_ readying the short sword, then jerks open the cabinet door--and finds himself staring down the blade into a pair of huge, pale green eyes.

She's hardly more than a child, no older than he had been when he'd first left Konoha, probably younger, and he briefly wonders what she's doing at a facility like this out here in the middle of nowhere. She must have parents stationed here, or perhaps she's a prodigy in her own right, or maybe Kumo-nin are just raised differently; regardless of which is the truth, it doesn't alter his purpose here, or lessen the need for haste and secrecy.

"Heal my hand," he says without lowering his blade. Despite her age and the way she's huddled in the corner of the cabinet, it could still be a trap, and Sasuke isn't taking that chance: his tone and the sword in his hand leave no room for argument, and his eyes melt into black-flecked red again, spinning and transfixing. Dazed, the girl stares into them for a long moment, then nods numbly; her trembling is visible as she slowly reaches out towards his hand, and she jerks backwards as if burned when he adds, "And if you try anything, I'll kill you." Swallowing hard, she nods again, placing her small, icy-cold hands on his bloody, broken one and doing as she's told.

She's not as good as Sakura. Her control is less perfect, her methods foreign, her chakra's touch rougher, grating on his _keirakukei_ like a musical instrument just slightly out of tune, but she gets the job done quickly and effectively nonetheless. There's a dull sort of hopelessness in the expression she turns up to him as she finishes, and as he notes that she's used up a great deal more chakra than she really needed to, he realises that she's done her best on his hand because she thinks it's the last thing she'll ever do.

She doesn't beg, she doesn't look away from him as the glow of her chakra around his hand fades, she just sits silently and waits for him to kill her, eyes clear and expression calm. Sasuke's hand tightens on the hilt of the _wakizashi_, but somehow there's too much of Sakura in this girl's face for him to easily bring it to bear, and he knows that this is one of those deciding moments, when a single, seemingly incidental choice can define you, can change everything that you see yourself as. He hears the muted sounds of violence from the rooms opposite, loud crashes and screams that cut off before they should, and it would be so easy, so simple to take that path, to let himself go and give into the dark rage he's had building inside him since he was a child and just _not care_ about his actions or the consequences, to live solely by impulse and emotion.

But looking down into those steady, almost-familiar green eyes, he knows he can't, knows that he doesn't really want to.

Because he does care, even if he pretends not to. Because that's who he is.

"…Thank you."

The girl's eyes widen and she sucks in a small, startled breath at those words, but although she's the one who's hearing them, they're not really meant for her, though she can't know that, and after another brief upwards glance into the Sharingan, she doesn't know anything at all except blackness. Sasuke doesn't catch her as she crumples to the floor, but he is almost uncharacteristically gentle as he gathers up her limp form and tucks her back into the cabinet, shifting some boxes around a bit as he does so (just so the doors will actually close, not to hide her better, or so he tells himself). Flexing his newly-healed hand, he readjusts the bandages to hide the fact that it's no longer broken, then goes to find Deidara, his thoughts not on the girl whose life he's just spared, but on someone else hundreds of miles south, in a place where he doesn't belong anymore and to which he can never return but that is an undeniable part of him regardless.

He is no longer a Leaf-nin, but he is still human, capable of control and compassion. And he is still himself, only showing that he cares when the one he cares for has no way of ever knowing about it.

* * *

Though it takes longer than either of them would like, they do eventually find the main storage room, full of standard-issue shinobi weaponry, extra uniforms, and some basic first-aid and supply kits. Sasuke is secretly pleased to find most of his own gear shoved into a dark corner--he's missed the smooth, worn hilt, the well-known balance and just-right length of his own sword more than he'd expected, and much prefers his own clothing to the oddly-cut Kumo-nin uniform Deidara has already pulled on.

The blonde artist pauses in buckling a shuriken holster to his leg, staring and then bursting out with a sudden explosion of laughter as, after changing out of the prison uniform, Sasuke snatches up and puts on what's left of his ragged Akatsuki cloak. The organisation is gone, the Uchiha knows that, had known that, but he'd kept the cloak; he hadn't been focused on anything enough to care about picking up a new one before he'd been captured, and this far north a cloak had been a necessity.

Trying not to look as if he's huddling to regain some of his lost warmth, Sasuke turns a flat stare on the blonde, his expression too annoyed to be inquisitive.

Still smirking, Deidara pulls two thick, standard-issue fur-lined Kumo-nin cloaks out of a locker in a dark corner and tosses one in Sasuke's general direction. It's intentionally thrown a few feet short, meant to force the Uchiha to either step forward quickly while shifting the armload of personal effects he's holding to free a hand to catch it, or pick it up off the floor. (He does the latter, still giving the other shinobi that cool, flat glare, which is now met with a superior smirk.) "We'll blend in better if we use these. Besides, Akatsuki cloaks aren't really all that warm, yeah."

Deidara then proceeds to waste nearly ten minutes at the small, grungy sink in the corner of the room, splashing water everywhere while making the plaster he'd taken from the infirmary into a semi-solid paste, another substitute for clay; his own equipment, his clay and its hip pouches included, is well over a hundred miles away in some storage locker in Kumogakure itself, if it hasn't been burned or discarded, which after so much time is highly unlikely.

By the time he's done half-flooding the room, Sasuke is chafing with impatience; true, there can't be many more guards around to get in their way, and they are smack dab in the middle of nowhere so there's no danger of them calling for backup, but every minute spent here gives them more time to regroup or come up with a trap of some sort.

"Relax," Deidara chuckles, smearing a little wet plaster-paste on the remaining chakra-repression cuffs, then almost carelessly making a one-handed seal and blowing them up in a surprisingly quiet and musical puff of metal dust. "They can try all they want, yeah, but there's nothing they can do to stop us now."

* * *

Deidara has asked this very question several times already, and he's always just gotten noncommittal half-answers in return, but that certainly doesn't stop the blonde from asking again as they both pause beside the heavy iron door that leads to the outside, to freedom, to put on and lace up the heavy boots they'd taken from the storage room.

"So where are you gonna go now, hmm?"

Sasuke doesn't deign to answer; he simply kicks the lever that opens the door and strides into the shallow tunnel, towards the perpetual snowstorm raging over the howling, empty tundra outside. On reaching the mouth of the cave, he starts off in a random direction, because right now, any direction is fine so long as it's _away_ from the blonde shinobi. They've beaten the odds and escaped from that icy hellhole, but Sasuke holds no more affection for the former Iwa-nin now than he ever has, and he has no desire to prolong their partnership; their temporary alliance is at an end as far as he's concerned.

But Deidara isn't so easily put off. He scowls and takes a few steps after Sasuke, raising his voice to be heard over the wind: "I'm planning on heading southwest, back to Earth Country. It's a big place with lots of decent-sized cities, and I look pretty different these days so I doubt I'll be recognised, yeah, thanks for asking!"

Predictably, Sasuke ignores him, and soon the blowing snow has swallowed him up, leaving the blonde standing at the mouth of the cave, alone.

With an annoyed huff, Deidara forms one of his standard clay birds, leaping aboard moments later, banking it sharply and heading off in the opposite direction.

* * *

  
4/5 - TBC


	5. 5: The Start of a Beautiful Friendship?

_A/N: ...Full chapter title is "This Could Be the Start of a Beautiful Friendship (...Or, Well, I Guess I Won't Kill You in Your Sleep...At Least Not Right Away)." XD_

* * *

The daily exercise regimen he'd forced himself to follow while imprisoned had kept him in better shape than he should have been in, but malnutrition, low chakra levels, and the constant cold had still left Sasuke considerably weaker than normal. This, coupled with the unfamiliar, difficult-to-maneuver terrain and the now sporadic rather than constant snowstorms, made it fairly easy for the Kumo-nin to catch up to him.

There must have been an outpost or something nearby that he didn't know about, but then again, the visibility is so poor that he could've passed within ten feet of it and never been the wiser. He doesn't dare use his Sharingan either, at least not at first, but when he starts thinking that maybe he's passed that exact same rock twice before, they snap on instantly.

And that is what saves him from the squad of Kumo-nin coming up fast behind him.

Still, he is sorely outnumbered--there are ten of them, all jounin by the focused look of their chakra--and while he could have taken them all easily under better circumstances, his own chakra levels are getting dangerously low. He's already slipping almost every other step, exhausted from the hours he's spent fighting his way through these snowy mountains, and it's more luck (or maybe the powerful combination of adrenaline and desperation) than skill that allows him to keep his attackers at bay. He manages to hold his own, but he isn't taking any of them out, and he knows he has to and _fast,_ because this can't last—

A staccato series of explosions, entirely unexpected, send him flying a good thirty metres, and he skids downhill on his back for at least another ten before quickly flipping himself to his feet, sword held at the ready. However, there is no trace of any of the Kumo-nin's chakra signatures (not that he'd expected there to be), and when he re-crosses those forty metres, he finds nothing but large, charred craters with a few tongues of flame flickering along their bottoms; already the snow is moving to reclaim those bits of ground, implacably coating the still-steaming earth until there is no heat left to melt it away.

And Sasuke briefly directs narrowed eyes upwards, already knowing and not liking it one bit. Yes, he thinks as he turns and starts off again, death might very well have been preferable to what he knows is coming.

He waits to resheathe his sword until he can sense the prickle of the other shinobi's chakra--a pointed movement roughly equivalent to a slap in the face, though really it's a calculated move: pressing the blade's edge against the inside of the sheath while he draws it will almost double the speed of his swing, and he'll need to be that fast if he ends up having to fight this particular battle right here and right now.

The snow is falling softly now, and silent, so there is nothing to cover the sound of approaching wings or muffle the brazenly irritating, all-too-familiar voice calling out to him:

"Not even a 'thank you'? Maybe I should've just let them kill you, yeah."

Sasuke doesn't have to say a word; the expression of mingled disbelief and suspicion (mostly suspicion) he turns skyward is sufficient to communicate his mistrust for Deidara's reasons for saving him. The blonde reads that mistrust easily, offering a rather unpleasant smile in return.

"You're the last one with _those eyes,_ right? So _I'm_ the one who's gonna kill you, not anyone else, yeah."

Sasuke tenses, eyes narrowing even further, knuckles flaring white on his sword hilt.

Deidara's grin widens at that, and he gives a low chuckle. "Heh, you don't have anything to worry about right now. Neither of us is in any shape for a good fight--a few months in prison can really take the edge off your skills--so for now, I'll have to take a rain cheque, yeah." He gives Sasuke that mildly unsettling evaluating stare, eyes going cold and analytical; after a moment he seems to come to some sort of decision, and brings the bird down lower, just within jumping range, raising an eyebrow in invitation.

Once more Sasuke starts to turn away, only to find himself looking down at dozens and dozens of tiny clay insects milling around on the ground surrounding him.

"Then again, if you're just gonna be full of yourself like that…" Deidara begins, casually folding one hand into a seal that Sasuke knows very well by now, and the Uchiha snorts, narrowly resisting the urge to roll his eyes. In an instant he's leaped aboard the clay bird and seated himself as far away from the blonde shinobi as possible (which isn't very, considering the size of the thing, but that half-metre of space is a welcome one in Sasuke's eyes). Deidara just chuckles again and sends the bird winging off through the chilly mountain air, inwardly musing on whether the younger man will cave after an hour or so and move a bit closer for warmth's sake and ultimately deciding that he won't.

Which is a good thing, really--after all this, killing the kid by pushing him off the bird would be pretty anticlimactic.

* * *

A few hours of travel prove him right, but also find them both utterly numb with the cold. Even Deidara's previous semi-immunity seems to have failed, if the violent shudders wracking his body are any indication. But if he's waiting for Sasuke to give in and ask him to stop, he finally realises that he's going to be disappointed; and though it feels a little like admitting a weakness or being the first to blink or look away in a staring contest, eventually Deidara lands them at the mouth of an icicle-encrusted cave, and the way they both stumble those few feet into the cavern and out of the wind has little to do with the almost-hip-deep snow and plenty to do with their muscles being half-frozen into a seated position.

Through an uncommon stroke of luck (for Deidara, not Sasuke, who tends to be too lucky for his own good, or so Deidara thinks), it turns out that the cave must be an emergency shelter of sorts for the Kumo-nin: there's decent-sized pile of neatly stacked firewood, some thermal blankets, and some emergency rations—tea and rice and some pots to cook both in. Sasuke falls to building a fire, survival being a larger factor than pride, while Deidara immediately claims all the blankets for himself, though by the time Sasuke has the fire going, he's apparently warmed up enough to discard half of them, leaving them strewn around the cave at random.

Sasuke's eye twitches at the mess, but it's not _his_ cave and he refuses to pick up after this jackass any more than he has to; he takes the nearest of the blankets (the one with the least snow on it) and ignores the rest, putting a snow-filled pot over the little fire to melt.

Would that the artist's other actions were as easy to ignore.

"Make some tea, too, yeah," he says, kicking the metal tin in Sasuke's direction, obviously an order rather than a request. Sasuke only just keeps the tin from skittering into the fire, turning his head and spitting Deidara with an even glare, but the blonde just turns his nose up haughtily, unrepentant as ever. "You're Akatsuki now, right? Well I'm your senpai, so you're the one who has to do the menial tasks like that. And I don't _feel_ like cooking right now, even if I'd probably be better at it than you, hmm." He stretches out on his back, blankets all but abandoned, folding his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. "Wake me up when it's ready."

He's not Akatsuki (neither of them is anymore), but Sasuke knows that saying so wouldn't be worth the effort; he snorts quietly as he dumps the rice into the boiling water, annoyed in that flatly bored way the blonde hates so much. 'Tobi' might've scraped and begged and pandered to Deidara's superiority complex (or at least _seemed_ to at their first meeting—he's still not entirely sure what Madara was playing at there), but Sasuke intends to do no such thing. If the other missing nin wants any food or tea, he'll have to wake up and get it on his own.

But apparently the blonde wasn't really sleeping, because the instant after the tea kettle whistles, he's crouched by the fire, using the end of his sleeve to hold the hot metal as he fills his cup. Sasuke manages to get his half of the rice while the other shinobi is busy dumping most of their sugar into his tea, and after obtaining his own cup of tea, retreats to a far corner of the cave, not minding the cold so long as it will grant him some distance from the blonde. Deidara must sense this however, because he soon drags his pile of blankets over towards Sasuke and settles in—not _close,_ exactly, but much nearer than the Uchiha had in mind.

But even though the proximity is somewhat taxing, it would have been bearable but for what happens next.

Deidara rolls over onto his side, looks Sasuke full in the face, and starts talking. And his first question is almost enough to send Sasuke pelting back towards the prison complex:

"So, where are we going now?"

_We?_ Sasuke barely keeps from growling, though he's sure his glare gets that message across just as clearly as if he'd actually said the word aloud. Yet somehow Deidara seems oblivious to it, and starts listing off various cities and other possible interesting locations, and while going _anywhere_ with this psychopathic nightmare of a shinobi is the last thing he really wants to do, Sasuke can't help but feel responsible for Deidara's freedom. _Responsibility_ is a new idea, at least _this_ sort of responsibility, but it was passed like a torch and it burns within him now, unable to be ignored. And the fact of the matter is, Deidara needs someone around to keep him in check--someone more powerful than he is, or at least an even match, someone who can, and will, take him out if need be. Possibly even permanently.

The idea of taking a life isn't at all daunting to Sasuke anymore. He's older, more jaded. He's known both sides of death now, and seeing your best friend's blood on your hands while he's lying still and broken on the ground before you changes things. Changes _you._

Especially when you also know that it was undeniably, incontestably, inescapably your fault.

Deidara still hasn't shut up (now he's going on about some mysterious country in the lands beyond Mist-nin territory, somewhere far across the sea), and Sasuke feels an unexpected pang when he looks over at him. There are plenty of differences, worlds and universes of them, but with his hair cut shorter, and both brilliantly blue eyes visible, and his mouth constantly moving, there are still enough similarities for the brief sideways glimpses Sasuke keeps catching out of the corner of his eyes to be painful.

He can't face that even now, can't accept it; closing his eyes, he turns his head away and tries to find sleep.

Only to find himself being jabbed in the ribs with his own (sheathed) sword less than a minute later.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, yeah! Don't ignore me!"

Perhaps, Sasuke thinks with a sinking feeling of resignation as he snatches his sword away and glowers at a widely-grinning Deidara, he is simply fated (or maybe _doomed_ would be a more fitting term) to be partnered with loud, obnoxious blue-eyed blondes.

* * *

It comes as something of a shock to both of them when they get far enough south to discover that while they had been battling their way through fierce snowstorms in the distant north, the rest of the world was enjoying a hot, lazy summer.

So hot and lazy, in fact, that they are soon forced to abandon their coats and cold-weather gear--Akatsuki cloaks included, since they're both smarter than that and neither wants anything more to do with Akatsuki anyway. Sasuke burns the discarded items to hide the physical proof of their passage; before he can protest, Deidara throws the Uchiha's Oto belt on the fire too, something that irritates Sasuke for days afterwards, since his pants were just a bit loose and the belt was more functional than fashionable.

They ditch the bird when they see a good-sized town on the horizon, walking the rest of the way like normal travelers; and surprisingly enough, they blend in—wagons and caravans crowd the roads leading into the town, and people on foot are flocking there as well. From snatches of overheard conversation, it soon becomes clear that tomorrow is the start of Obon, and the town they're heading toward is known for holding an expansive three-day-festival.

It's late afternoon when they finally walk through the city gates, and it's been a while since either has been in a city or town without having to worry about being seen and recognised, though it doesn't take them long to get their bearings. Deidara immediately buys some yakitori, and wanders down the street munching it contentedly, not offering to share either the food or the money he bought it with, which is annoying, but not exactly cruel since they'd still had some supplies leftover from the cave in Kumo and had already eaten breakfast that morning. Talking around a mouthful of chicken, Deidara suggests that they look for an inn. He'd consistently picked the pockets of all the guards they'd killed as they broke out of prison, and he knows he has more than enough to pay for a stay in a fairly nice inn for a few days. Sasuke had seen him rifling through pockets and such, but he hadn't even thought about it; practical as he generally was, money had never really been much of a concern for him.

They spend the next hour being jostled through busy streets, searching in vain for a marginally respectable-looking place, then any place at all, that doesn't have its NO VACANCY sign in the window already. The only one they can find is a bit dingy-looking, and its paintjob has obviously seen its share of sun and the elements, but both shinobi have seen and stayed in places that looked far worse, so they wordlessly agree to give it a try.

The inside is a little cramped but also somewhat less dingy, and the skinny slip of a man at the front counter who is obviously the innkeeper has a sly, pinched cast to his face that his greasy smile does not improve upon. Deidara narrows his eyes, apparently taking an instant dislike to the man, then entertains himself by drawing on the grimy windows.

"Two rooms," he says over his shoulder, and then he all but stops listening, since in his mind that's the end of the conversation. He knows this type--the innkeeper will claim there's only a single room left every time anyone asks for a room, and will jack up the price since most of the other places are already full--and he also knows that all that type really needs is the right sort of persuasion.

_"So_ sorry," the innkeeper gushes, a blatantly false apology, "but we only have one room left—" his beady eyes dart back and forth between Sasuke and Deidara, as if trying to determine something "—but it's got a double-size bed, so if you don't mind—"

"We _do,_ actually," Deidara drawls, dragging a nail across the glass with a nerve-gratingly high-pitched screech, an edge of menace in his grin, which is really more a baring of teeth than anything. "So you'd better figure something out fast, or we'll do a lot more than just _mind,_ yeah." He treats the innkeeper to another moment of that eerie too-wide grin, then turns his attention back to the windows.

The man looks at Sasuke dubiously, but his gaze is quickly brought back to Deidara when the sound of shattering glass tears through the air. The nearest window is in pieces on the floor, and the blonde looks more than a little self-satisfied.

"Oops," he says with that same grin, then his eyes move to the next pane consideringly.

The innkeeper's expression slackens in something like horrified disbelief, and that, coupled with a sort of desperation, is the look he turns on Sasuke. But if he's looking for reassurance, he won't be getting any from the Uchiha.

"Give us a room with two beds, or you won't have any rooms left…or any inn, either," he says calmly, as if it wasn't a threat at all even though it absolutely is.

It's a reasonable compromise, asking for a single room but two beds, but even then, the innkeeper wavers, forcing Sasuke to give one finally nudge.

"He's a demolitions expert," he says in his usual coldly collected manner as another window cracks and the innkeeper's gaze returns to the wickedly smirking blonde lurking behind him. "And if you can tell there used to be a building there, he says the explosion wasn't big enough."

The innkeeper goes pasty white, and fumbles with his ledger and a room key. "Room 31, top floor!" he sputters, shoving the key at Sasuke and wincing as something else shatters--the glass in a picture frame in the lobby. Deidara is there in a flash, scooping up the key and scattering a few coins across the counter, making the man scrabble for them.

"Such service," the blonde chuckles mostly to himself as he takes the stairs two at a time.

The instant they reach their room, even before the door is fully closed behind them, Deidara kicks off his sandals, strips off his shirt, and flops down on the bed closer to the window. Sasuke looks at him with disgust when he almost immediately starts to snore.

By the time Sasuke himself is ready for bed half an hour later, the blonde has kicked the extra blankets off the foot of the bed and twisted himself up in the single sheet, a flimsy cocoon which does nothing to muffle the piercing snores still rattling in and out of him. Sasuke glowers at him, weighing the level of inexplicably associated guilt against his bone-deep longing for a good night's sleep in a warm, comfortable bed and ultimately (but grudgingly) deciding that suffocating Deidara with his pillow isn't worth it. Instead, he buries his head under his own pillow, though it's a good half hour at least before he stops tossing and turning and sleep finds him at long last.

Once his breathing finally evens out, the snoring abruptly stops, two blue eyes snapping open and to the side. Stretching luxuriously, Deidara grins to himself, straightening his blankets and settling down into them before dropping into a deep, exhausted sleep, traces of an impish little smile still lingering in the slight curve of his mouth.

* * *

Both are beyond exhausted, and they sleep until late afternoon of the next day. Sasuke blearily comes to, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, listening to the sounds of the festival-goers outside, and slowly piecing together where he is, and why he is where he is. He's halfway up and into the nearest corner, sword in hand, when the bathroom door swings open, but he relaxes again (mostly) when he realises it's only Deidara, wrapped in about three towels.

"Finally decided to wake up, hmm?" the blonde says with a grin on seeing him standing there. Sasuke rolls his eyes and looks away as Deidara practically bounds across the room, losing one towel completely and loosening the other two dangerously, dropping to one knee to dig into a bag sitting at the foot of his bed.

"Here," he says after a minute or so of rummaging, and tosses a wad of messily-folded dark blue-checkered fabric at Sasuke's face. Sasuke snatches it out of the air well before it can make contact, shaking it out and blinking with slight surprise on finding himself holding a decent-looking yukata.

"Hope it's boring enough for you," Deidara says, lobbing a wine-red obi at him as well before turning his attention on smoothing out and getting into his own yukata, which is electric blue with a pattern of what looks like some sort of bird in orange and yellow, his own obi a vivid orange to match. Even in the dim light, Sasuke's eyes sting a little looking at it, and he heaves an irritated little sigh because he knows he's going to have to put up with looking at it all evening, because leaving Deidara alone in a crowded area like this would be a recipe for disaster. At least they don't have worry about blending in--the place is full to bursting with travelers and people from out-of-town, and he and Deidara are hardly likely to be the flashiest or strangest-looking people out there tonight.

By the end of the night, Sasuke is surprised to find that he's had a moderately good time, in spite of his own reticent nature and Deidara's seemingly limitless energy. Again he feels that uncomfortable pang as he's dragged from booth to booth, often forced to hold their food and delegated to carry things like the little bag with a turtle in it that Deidara won from one of the many games stalls; the last time he'd been to a festival like this, another blonde had done the dragging, and Sasuke indulges in a bit more than his share of sake that night to take the edge off those memories and maybe to help him pretend that they aren't memories at all. But when that leaves him looking for a glimpse of pink hair in the surrounding crowd before he catches himself, he doesn't drink another drop for the rest of the night.

They don't ever discuss it aloud, but they decide to stay there for the full three days of the festival through a silent sort of mutual consent. It's the perfect cover, since the crowds will definitely hide them during their stay, and during their departure as well, and truthfully both know that they need the time to recover from their prison ordeal. So for those three days, they sleep most of the day, relax in the hot springs during the evening, and attend the festival at night.

It's approaching midnight on the third day, and Deidara's cheeks are just as flushed with alcohol as Sasuke's were that first night, though the blonde only seems more hyperactively obnoxious because of it. As they pause on a street corner to wolf down some excellent takoyaki, the blonde artist leans in to dig a sharp elbow into Sasuke's side. "C'mon, c'mon, you haven't done _anything_ tonight! Give something a try, yeah! Or aren't you good at anything other than acting superior and being a self-important jackass?"

Sasuke ignores the prodding, both verbal and physical, neatly finishing his food and disposing of the garbage, then (more or less) patiently waiting for Deidara to do the same. The blonde shoves his last three takoyaki into his mouth all at once, carelessly tossing his trash to the side, then once again he's towing Sasuke along through the crowd after him—which abruptly switches to Deidara shoving Sasuke forward and then fading back into the crowd with a snicker. Sasuke gives an irritated huff at his childish behaviour, too busy scanning the faces surrounding him in an attempt to locate the current bane of his existence to notice much else; his search is interrupted by the thunder of taiko drums, and as the long looping line of people he's standing with start…_dancing._

It's the Bon Odori, which is fairly easy and vaguely the same regardless of where it's performed, and his Sharingan make learning the particulars of this region's version effortless. And he actually goes along with it, because it's really not that bad, because of the traditional meaning behind it, because he has had a cup or two of sake and is feeling a bit mellow, and because lots of people are watching and there's simply no graceful way to leave in the middle of the dance. He hasn't participated in a Bon festival dance since he was a child, not since the loss of his family, and there is something nostalgic, something peaceful and reassuring in the simple, nonsensical-feeling movements. By the end of it, there is something very much like the vague memory of a smile on the last Uchiha's face.

…And by the end of it, he's certain that he's lost track of Deidara for good. Which isn't a wholly bad thing, really: it allows him to walk at his own pace for once, enables him to soak in his surroundings and pay attention to something other than keeping someone else out of trouble. He starts to notice more and more people carrying paper lanterns and heading towards the nearby river for the tōrō nagashi ceremony, and though he's drifting in the same direction, he slows a bit, knowing that technically it would be a waste of money to buy one of his own, but feeling very much like he owes it to _him_ to honour his sacrifice in every way possible.

He's still deliberating when a small child comes up to him, shoving something into his hands--"You danced really good, stranger-san!"--and Sasuke finds himself holding one of those paper lanterns: a white one. The child is gone before he can say a word, either in thanks (unlikely) or in question (how did the boy know?), but later, when he lights it and almost tenderly places it on the water, there's no doubt in his heart or his mind who it's for or why it had come to him, seemingly by chance.

But after everything that's happened to him over his nineteen years, Uchiha Sasuke is starting to believe that there's really no such thing as chance, especially when certain fox-faced blondes were concerned.

The riverbank had already been packed, making it nearly impossible to get down to the water; after a quick glance around, Sasuke had simply teleported to the other side of the sizeable waterway, then walked downstream until the hum of the crowd faded to a muted buzz. Now he sits on his own in the dark, watching the lantern he'd lit drift away, that flame that had been so bright and warm and immediate soon nothing more than a wavering flicker in the distance.

He hears a sandal intentionally scuff along a patch of dirt, and in his peripheral vision, he can see Deidara sitting on his heels a hundred metres or so down the bank, the glow of those hundreds of little fires on the water making his eyes gleam with a spark of that manic light Sasuke knows all too well. But surprisingly enough, the blonde seems content with merely looking on, and (unsurprisingly) amusing himself by sinking the odd lantern with a rock or a tiny clay creature.

He picks targets well clear of the lantern Sasuke released, however, and the Uchiha wonders how intentional that is; when Deidara turns a brief but unexpectedly serious stare his way, he pretends not to notice, but he has his answer, and abruptly he gets to his feet. His lantern has melded into the glow of the others, unrecognizable amongst its fellows, and Sasuke looks at the cluster of warm, buttery yellow lights for the space of a dozen heartbeats before slowly, purposefully turning and making his way back to the inn, making the journey entirely on foot this time.

Deidara doesn't follow him right away; he lingers, sinking a few more of the delicate little lanterns and admiring the spectacle they all make skimming along the surface of the river. It's a beautiful thing, because they're lovely to look upon but are so fragile, so easily destroyed, their flames so fleeting. _Memento mori,_ he thinks to himself with a tightly vicious little smile as he sends another tiny paper boat to the bottom of the river. _Remember you must die._

He won't forget. He never has really, but that remembrance comes even easier these days, every time he brushes a hand over a patch of still-scarred skin, every time the wind touches his hair and the expected weight and tug isn't there, every time the chill of evening can find no place to settle into his bones.

That Uchiha brat won't forget either, he thinks suddenly, and though even a passing consideration of his current travelling companion irks him a bit (makes him long to wrap his strong artist's fingers around that pretty, too-pale throat or else just shake him until that huge stick shoved six feet up his ass works its way free), he can feel a sort of resonance there between them that goes deeper than simply being shinobi or missing nin or even prodigies. The way he'd carried and released that lantern like it was a part of himself, the way his attention had lingered on it, watching it out of sight like a parent or lover would their treasured child or their cherished sweetheart; there is a knowledge of death there, an acceptance tempered not with fear, but with equanimity. The way he'd let himself relax into the Bon Odori dance, which Deidara had thought would make him angry and uncomfortable for the rest of the night, but instead had shown that even he could occasionally put something else before his own personal pride and let himself have something that could _almost_ be considered _fun._

And while the artist is sure that he'll never really _like_ the stuck-up bastard, there is perhaps the barest scrap of regard buried in the vindictive curiosity, bloodlust, and constant impulse to irritate the hell out of him whenever possible. Nothing has changed--Deidara still wants nothing more than to see that fear in those red, red eyes again before turning the last Uchiha into a glorious work of Art, nothing more than to shatter that implacable façade and see him cry and beg and plead for his life--but at the same time, in a way, everything has changed.

And that's what makes life worth living.

With a smirk, the blonde teleports away, already snickering to himself inwardly over the projected look of confusion then disgust that will wash over the Uchiha's face on finding that Deidara short-sheeted his bed while he was in the bathroom earlier, leaving the paper lanterns to swirl and drift along in their _danse macabre,_ hundreds of tiny beacons to guide the lost back to where they now belong: wandering, transitory escorts for the eternal.

He teleports directly back their room, amused but somehow not surprised to find that he beat Sasuke back; but when he turns around, for a moment he can only stare, transfixed on finding that even from their room at the inn, the glow from the river is still visible over the nearby rooftops.

* * *

They leave the morning after the festival ends, once again going on foot for a while and mingling with the crowd on the off chance that any Kumo-nin might have tracked them this far. Regardless of who leads, the other is always just a half-step behind, their reasons vastly different but the results of them more or less the same. Neither really has anywhere to go, or any particular destination in mind, but as they continue to wander, they slowly realise that despite how little they _like_ each other, their differing talents and skill sets mean that they _do_ work well together, and the odd jobs they take to earn a little money here and there always end in success, even if Deidara has to go blow things up to let off some steam afterward and Sasuke grinds his teeth throughout the entire task.

There is also the fact that neither truly likes being alone. There is no one waiting for either of them, and both know in their heart of hearts that if they go their own separate ways, they will be condemning themselves to lives of solitude, even if their ultimate destination turns out to be the biggest, busiest city. They are each all that the other has left of the past, and while they are equally glad to be done with that past, they are also equally bound to it: one more thing they will never forget. And while it is not a warm, comfortable bond, irritated resignation edging on grudging respect but not quite touching mutual trust, it is far better than nothing.

The city where they end up is large but a bit run-down, on the border between the Land of Earth and Waterfall Country. They didn't intend to stay for good, simply looking for a place to stop for a week or two, but the odd jobs kept coming, and before they knew it, they'd all but settled in permanently. Sasuke accepts simple chores like working in gardens and cleaning out storerooms, Deidara takes on courier jobs that let him get out and stretch his wings (both literally and figuratively), but for the most part they work together on retrieval jobs, drug busts, and the odd assassination, though those are rare and only taken on if the target is far, far away from their current place of residence.

In the beginning, Deidara is still looking to kill Sasuke the first chance he gets; but every time he thinks he's found the perfect time, something comes up or he finds an excuse to put it off just a little longer. There's still something _more_ there, more to see, more to learn, and killing the brat before he's figured it all out would be a waste, because there's an art to his very existence, something that has nothing to do with bloodlines and winning the genetic lottery and _those eyes._ For his part, Sasuke has reconciled himself to the fact that, until one of them dies, he's going to be stuck with the blonde. That nagging sense of responsibility won't let him simply leave; he has to stay close to monitor the other shinobi's actions and hopefully, ultimately temper Deidara's destructive habits somewhat.

A year passes, then another, and still neither moves on; neither makes any attempt to upset the subtle but increasingly substantial connection between them. And while it's not what either would call _friendship_ (nothing like most would call friendship, in fact), that's precisely what it is, though either or both would sooner die denying it than admit as much.

But though they tend to ignore the minor things, the little problems that are annoying but not life-threatening, that doesn't stop them from looking out for each other when they really have to. Still, sometimes they think that dying might actually be preferable to accepting the help of the other shinobi.

Deidara is thinking just that as he struggles to wrap a particularly nasty kunai wound on the back of his upper arm. He'd much rather bleed out than ask for assistance from _Uchiha Sasuke,_ but thankfully, he doesn't need to ask.

Sasuke takes stock of the situation the instant he enters the room, and he steps closer after only the briefest pause. He doesn't say a word as he firmly takes the bandages from the blonde's fumbling grasp, and since the injury is more on the underside of the arm, it's something of an awkward angle, so with great dignity and not the slightest sense of submission, he kneels beside Deidara's chair. He makes a quick, thorough job of it, not lingering with the barest shade of compassion or slowing to prevent or ease the unavoidable pain that binding up a wound always brings, but he's not recklessly fast or in any way sloppy either. The instant he's done he rises and moves away, washing his hands even though they aren't bloodied, and turns to leave again without so much as glancing at Deidara's face even once to see how he's taking the pain.

Deidara moves his arm in a circle, testing the bandage, then scowling at it: further proof that all things change. Still scowling, he raises his gaze to settle on Sasuke's back, right between his shoulderblades, his mouth quirking with a challenging smile that, while still feral and fierce, has somehow lost some of its heat and viciousness. His tone still carries them though, defiance in the face of the consideration but never-quite-concern Sasuke consistently grants him these days.

"…You know I'm still gonna kill you one day, yeah?"

Sasuke pauses with his hand on the door, then glances back over his shoulder at him; if Deidara didn't know better, he would've thought he saw the faintest of smiles lingering around the last Uchiha's mouth before he turned his head away again.

"Yeah...I know."


End file.
